This invention relates to an autoloader for film cassettes, and more particularly to an autoloader for feeding cassettes to and receiving them from a computed radiography reader.
It is known from U.S. Pat. No. 4,878,799, issued Nov. 7, 1989, to provide an automatic machine for unloading film sheets from magazines More specifically, a machine as disclosed in such patent has moveable trays for supporting a plurality of magazines, and the trays are spaced from each other in a vertical direction. The trays are supported by an elevator for movement in a vertical direction as a unit When a tray is at a particular vertical position, the tray and magazine are moved to an unloading position where sheets in the magazine can be removed by suction cups. The removed sheets are then fed to a cassette or to a photographing device for exposure.
In computed radiography a photographic element, such as a storage phosphor sheet or rigid plate, is exposed to form a latent image. The exposed photographic element is taken to a reader where the photographic element is stimulated to emit a pattern of radiation that can be read and recorded. Then the photographic element is erased and can be reused again. It is common to manually transport the cassette containing the photographic element from the exposure apparatus to the reader and manually insert it into the reader. The operator then waits until the image is read, the photographic element is erased and returned to the operator. While this procedure may be satisfactory, it requires much time and effort by the operator. Operator time is increased when the reader is relatively slow in reading and erasing the photographic element, and this procedure can require more than a full minute of time It clearly is desirable to minimize the time required by an operator, and to do so in a way which makes it feasible to automate the feeding of a series of cassettes to the reader.